Chris Weyers truly embodies all six values recognized by the ASPIRE award. He has achieved great things with enterprise communications by taking our department to the next level and working to create a truly unified team of people delivering great results to the business. In his role he has also acted as a steward not just of the OneAmerica brand but also the company’s values and its people. That stewardship can be seen in the way he has worked to tell the OA story, and in how he cultivates talent.

As a partner to the business, he has helped grow our department’s stature by leaps and bounds. Since I began working here a year ago, I have heard time and again that the business trusts us more and more because we keep delivering great results. Chris has worked extremely hard to drive those results as a partner to the business.

Chris is also a leader of tremendous integrity. He is the same person whether he’s interacting with his newest employee or with the CEO of the company. He gives his honest opinion based on facts and experience, and advocates for his point of view without being inflexible. Because of his integrity he has built a tremendous amount of trust within his team and with the enterprise.
He is also very responsive to the needs of the people who count on him. I have called Chris, emailed him, texted him, pinged him on Skype, and no matter how or when I reach out he is always quick to help. On a larger scale, Chris is responsive to the needs of the company. He is proactive as a marketer and a problem-solver, and full of ideas about how to deliver the best results to solve those problems.

Finally, I can’t say enough about his overall excellence. After working here for a full year I can say that Chris is one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for. He has a real vision for our team and the enterprise as a whole, and he knows how to fit that vision within Scott’s larger vision for the company. He is a great storyteller and writer, and a skilled marketer. If the man has one fault, it is that he is modest and always quick to dole out credit to the people that surround him. I think sometimes he shines so much light on other people that it’s easy to forget that he is the source.

When I began, Chris told me I was coming on after a big transition within the company, and that there were still many changes ahead. I was unsure about what to expect – especially after reading some very vocal, unhappy reviews on Glassdoor. But when I took the job, what I saw was a leader molding his team to be more effective, more cohesive, more cooperative, and more empowered.

Over the last year I have seen the relationships within our own team grow stronger as Chris continues to cultivate us. I have also heard over and over again from people throughout the company that the business is learning to trust marketing because of the partnership we’ve shown and the good work we’re doing. That wouldn’t be happening without the kind of leadership Chris has shown.

During the COVID crisis, when so much upheaval was happening and work was the most demanding I’d ever seen it, Chris was a steady, sure voice that helped guide the team through. He was always present and available to listen, and always there to remove obstacles to the team. That’s just one example of how he made us more productive, kept us engaged, and built trust within the team.

Chris empowers his team by giving us the ability to make decisions, give advice, and then standing behind us when we do so. This in turn allows us to do our best work.
One example I can give is that while I was still new to the company I worked with Chris on the annual report. Part of the learning curve was figuring out not just the “voice” of the company, but also the “voice” of the stories we were telling within the report. Chris helped me learn what I needed to know about the company, but also empowered me to make decisions and tell the stories to the best of my ability, rather than getting bogged down with questions of style.
As a direct result of those experiences, when it came time to write the communications for Leading Tomorrow with OneAmerica, I felt empowered by Chris to write in the voice that I thought worked best for the tone we wanted the series to have. My choices were embraced by my team and by leadership as a whole, but there was a risk inherent in my decision to adopt a friendlier, more conversational tone than some of OA’s other communications might adopt. Because of my experiences with Chris on the annual report, and because I knew that even if I failed I could trust him to help me improve, I was able to create something that worked really well.

Lest that sound like bragging, I will also point to the great work being done throughout our team. Jami Stall is a dedicated editor who has told me, repeatedly, that Chris’s leadership is one of the reasons she feels she is able to push hard during the editorial process to make work the best it can be. Flor Skidmore is an excellent writer who has grown just in the time I’ve known her as a result of Chris’s leadership and willingness to empower her to make substantial decisions on the EB line. And Kimberly Reynolds, in addition to being a great writer with a lot of responsibility, has also been empowered to take leadership roles of her own, such as when she trained me on the finer points of ILFS while I was still new.
The successes and achievements of our team come as a direct result of Chris’s leadership style and decisions. He empowers us to work hard, fight for our point of view, and challenge ourselves and others to make work the best it can be. I think because of that empowerment we all dig in and work even harder to prove ourselves worthy of that trust.

There have been so many project kick-offs where Chris will begin the meeting by explaining that “this is something the business hasn’t done before.” Although he’s often too modest to say so up front, eventually it will come out that the project is the result of his own efforts to drive positive change.

Even the current configuration of our team is in part because of his own efforts to change how enterprise marketing works. We’ve gone from being siloed and off working with the lines of business to being a cohesive, mutually-supportive team. That’s made us better, and it has also made the work we do better.

Another example would be the thoughtful way Chris has adapted us to working in a virtual environment. Through his one-on-one and team meetings he’s made sure that what could have been a much greater disruption was instead an overall positive change for our team. He helped us adapt quickly to a new way of doing business, and because of that we were able to better serve the needs of the business.

As a professional writer, I’ve worked under many different styles of leadership. I don’t know that I can think of another leader as universally admired by his team as Chris. The trust and the loyalty that he has built with us is the result of daily effort not just to lead but to empower us to be better leaders ourselves.

I once read somewhere that Bill Belichick (hear me out!) believed that even the lowest ranking member of a team could show leadership. By his definition, leadership doesn’t mean you’re in charge of every last detail – instead it means that you carry your own weight, you support the rest of your team, and you do the best work you’re capable of. I have to believe Chris subscribes to a similar philosophy because his leadership style has empowered each of us to lead in our own ways, even while acting as part of a larger team.

He is not afraid to encourage us. He is not afraid to correct us. But most of all, he just isn’t afraid, period. Throughout the craziest, most challenging year of my professional life, Chris has never flinched. He has not lost sight of the needs of his team as individuals, his team as a unit, the marketing department as a whole, or the enterprise itself. His leadership reflects that, and makes him an excellent candidate for this award.